Metre

I n poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional
verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a
particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both
known as prosody. (Within linguistics, "prosody" is used in a more general sense that
includes not only poetic metre but also the rhythmic aspects of prose, whether formal or
informal, that vary from language to language, and sometimes between poetic traditions.)

Contents
1 Characteristics
o 1.1 Qualitative versus quantitative metre
o 1.2 Feet
1.2.1 Classification
o 1.3 Caesura
o 1.4 Enjambment
o 1.5 Metric variations
2 In various languages
o 2.1 Sanskrit
o 2.2 Greek and Latin
o 2.3 Classical Arabic
2.3.1 The Arabic metres
o 2.4 Classical Persian
o 2.5 Classical Chinese
o 2.6 Old English
o 2.7 Modern English
2.7.1 Metrical systems
2.7.2 Frequently-used metres
o 2.8 French
o 2.9 Spanish
o 2.10 Italian
o 2.11 Turkish
o 2.12 Ottoman Turkish
o 2.13 Portuguese
3 History
4 Dissent
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References

Characteristics
An assortment of features can be identified when classifying poetry and its metre.

Qualitative versus quantitative metre

The metre of most poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on patterns of
syllables of particular types. The familiar type of metre in English-language poetry is called
qualitative metre, with stressed syllables coming at regular intervals (e.g. in iambic
pentameters, usually every even-numbered syllable). Many Romance languages use a scheme
that is somewhat similar but where the position of only one particular stressed syllable (e.g.
the last) needs to be fixed. The metre of the old Germanic poetry of languages such as Old
Norse and Old English was radically different, but was still based on stress patterns.

Some classical languages, in contrast, used a different scheme known as quantitative metre,
where patterns were based on syllable weight rather than stress. In the dactylic hexameters of
Classical Latin and Classical Greek, for example, each of the six feet making up the line was
either a dactyl (long-short-short) or a spondee (long-long): a "long syllable" was literally one
that took longer to pronounce than a short syllable: specifically, a syllable consisting of a
long vowel or diphthong or followed by two consonants. The stress pattern of the words
made no difference to the metre. A number of other ancient languages also used quantitative
metre, such as Sanskrit and Classical Arabic (but not Biblical Hebrew).

Finally, non-stressed languages that have little or no differentiation of syllable length, such as
French or Chinese, base their verses on the number of syllables only. The most common form
in French is the Alexandrine, with twelve syllables a verse, and in classical Chinese five
characters, and thus five syllables. But since each Chinese character is pronounced using one
syllable in a certain tone, classical Chinese poetry also had more strictly defined rules, such
as parallelism or antithesis between lines.

Feet

In many Western classical poetic traditions, the metre of a verse can be described as a
sequence of feet,[1] each foot being a specific sequence of syllable types such as relatively
unstressed/stressed (the norm for English poetry) or long/short (as in most classical Latin and
Greek poetry).

Iambic pentameter, a common metre in English poetry, is based on a sequence of five iambic
feet or iambs, each consisting of a relatively unstressed syllable (here represented with ""
above the syllable) followed by a relatively stressed one (here represented with "/" above the
syllable) "da-DUM" = " /" :

/ / / / /
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
/ / / / /
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This approach to analyzing and classifying metres originates from Ancient Greek tragedians
and poets such as Homer, Pindar, Hesiod, and Sappho.

However some metres have an overall rhythmic pattern to the line that cannot easily be
described using feet. This occurs in Sanskrit poetry; see Vedic metre and Sanskrit metre.
(Although this poetry is in fact specified using feet, each "foot" is more or less equivalent to
an entire line.) It also occurs in some Western metres, such as the hendecasyllable favoured
by Catullus and Martial, which can be described as:

xx
(where "" = long, "" = short, and "x x" can be realized as " " or " " or " ")

Classification

Foot type Style Stress pattern Syllable count

Iamb Iambic Unstressed + Stressed Two
Trochee Trochaic Stressed + Unstressed Two
Spondee Spondaic Stressed + Stressed Two
Anapest or anapaest Anapestic Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed Three
Dactyl Dactylic Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed Three
Amphibrach Amphibrachic Unstressed + Stressed + Unstressed Three
Pyrrhic Pyrrhic Unstressed + Unstressed Two

[1]

If the line has only one foot, it is called a monometer; two feet, dimeter; three is trimeter; four
is tetrameter; five is pentameter; six is hexameter, seven is heptameter and eight is
octameter. For example, if the feet are iambs, and if there are five feet to a line, then it is
called a iambic pentameter.[1] If the feet are primarily dactyls and there are six to a line, then
it is a dactylic hexameter.[1]

Caesura

Sometimes a natural pause occurs in the middle of a line rather than at a line-break. This is a
caesura (cut). A good example is from The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare; the
caesurae are indicated by '/':

It is for you we speak, / not for ourselves:

You are abused / and by some putter-on
That will be damn'd for't; / would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him. / Be she honour-flaw'd,
I have three daughters; / the eldest is eleven

In Latin and Greek poetry, a caesura is a break within a foot caused by the end of a word.

Caesura also occurs in the syllabic metres of French and Polish poetry and for "osmerac"
(octosyllable) and "deseterac" (decasyllable) of Serbocroatian folk song.

Enjambment

Main article: Enjambment

By contrast with caesura, enjambment is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning
runs over from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation. Also from
Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale:

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
 Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.

Metric variations

Poems with a well-defined overall metric pattern often have a few lines that violate that
pattern. A common variation is the inversion of a foot, which turns an iamb ("da-DUM") into
a trochee ("DUM-da"). Another common variation is a headless verse, which lacks the first
syllable of the first foot. Yet a third variation is catalexis, where the end of a line is shortened
by a foot, or two or part thereof - an example of this is at the end of each verse in Keats' 'La
Belle Dame sans Merci':

And on thy cheeks a fading rose (4 feet)

Fast withereth too (2 feet)

In various languages
Sanskrit

Main articles: Sanskrit prosody and Vedic metre

Versification in Classical Sanskrit poetry is of three kinds.

1. Syllabic verse (akaravtta): metres depend on the number of syllables in a verse, with
relative freedom in the distribution of light and heavy syllables. This style is derived
from older Vedic forms, and found in the great epics, the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana.
2. Syllabo-quantitative verse (varavtta): metres depend on syllable count, but the light-
heavy patterns are fixed.
3. Quantitative verse (mtrvtta): metres depend on duration, where each verse-line has
a fixed number of morae, usually grouped in sets of four.

Standard traditional works on metre are Pingala's Chandastra and Kedra's Vttaratnkara.
The most exhaustive compilations, such as the modern ones by Patwardhan and Velankar
contain over 600 metres. This is a substantially larger repertoire than in any other metrical
tradition.

Greek and Latin

Main article: Prosody (Latin)

Further information: Prosody (Greek)

The metrical "feet" in the classical languages were based on the length of time taken to
pronounce each syllable, which were categorized according to their weight as either "long"
syllables or "short" syllables (indicated as dum and di below). These are also called "heavy"
and "light" syllables, respectively, to distinguish from long and short vowels. The foot is
often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to whole notes and half
notes. In English poetry, feet are determined by emphasis rather than length, with stressed
and unstressed syllables serving the same function as long and short syllables in classical
metre.

The basic unit in Greek and Latin prosody is a mora, which is defined as a single short
syllable. A long syllable is equivalent to two morae. A long syllable contains either a long
vowel, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. Various rules of
elision sometimes prevent a grammatical syllable from making a full syllable, and certain
other lengthening and shortening rules (such as correption) can create long or short syllables
in contexts where one would expect the opposite.

The most important Classical metre is the dactylic hexameter, the metre of Homer and Virgil.
This form uses verses of six feet. The word dactyl comes from the Greek word daktylos
meaning finger, since there is one long part followed by two short stretches.[2] The first four
feet are dactyls (daa-duh-duh), but can be spondees (daa-daa). The fifth foot is almost
always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a trochee (daa-duh). The initial syllable
of either foot is called the ictus, the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a caesura after
the ictus of the third foot. The opening line of the neid is a typical line of dactylic
hexameter:

Arm v | rumqu c | n, Troi | ae qu | prms b | rs

("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy...")

In this example, the first and second feet are dactyls; their first syllables, "Ar" and "rum"
respectively, contain short vowels, but count as long because the vowels are both followed by
two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, the first of which is divided by the
main caesura of the verse. The fifth foot is a dactyl, as is nearly always the case. The final
foot is a spondee.

The dactylic hexameter was imitated in English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his
poem Evangeline:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Notice how the first line:

This is the | for-est pri | me-val. The | mur-muring | pines and the | hem-locks

Follows this pattern:

dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum dum

Also important in Greek and Latin poetry is the dactylic pentameter. This was a line of verse,
made up of two equal parts, each of which contains two dactyls followed by a long syllable,
which counts as a half foot. In this way, the number of feet amounts to five in total. Spondees
can take the place of the dactyls in the first half, but never in the second. The long syllable at
the close of the first half of the verse always ends a word, giving rise to a caesura.
Dactylic pentameter is never used in isolation. Rather, a line of dactylic pentameter follows a
line of dactylic hexameter in the elegiac distich or elegiac couplet, a form of verse that was
used for the composition of elegies and other tragic and solemn verse in the Greek and Latin
world, as well as love poetry that was sometimes light and cheerful. An example from Ovid's
Tristia:

Vergl | um v | d tan | tum, nc | mr T | bull

Temps | mct | ae || ft d | dr m | ae.
("Virgil I merely saw, and the harsh Fates gave Tibullus no time for my friendship.")

The Greeks and Romans also used a number of lyric metres, which were typically used for
shorter poems than elegiacs or hexameter. In Aeolic verse, one important line was called the
hendecasyllabic, a line of eleven syllables. This metre was used most often in the Sapphic
stanza, named after the Greek poet Sappho, who wrote many of her poems in the form. A
hendecasyllabic is a line with a never-varying structure: two trochees, followed by a dactyl,
then two more trochees. In the Sapphic stanza, three hendecasyllabics are followed by an
"Adonic" line, made up of a dactyl and a trochee. This is the form of Catullus 51 (itself an
homage to Sappho 31):

Ill m pr ess d vdtur;

ill, s fs est, sprr dvs,
qu sdns adverss dentdem t
spectt t audit
("He seems to me to be like a god; if it is permitted, he seems above the gods, who
sitting across from you gazes at you and hears you again and again.")

The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he
simply called Sapphics:

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,

Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
Saw the reluctant...
Classical Arabic

See also: Arabic prosody

The metrical system of Classical Arabic poetry, like those of classical Greek and Latin, is
based on the weight of syllables classified as either "long" or "short". The basic principles of
Arabic poetic metre Ar or Arud (Arabic: al-ar) Science of Poetry (Arabic:
ilm a-ir), were put forward by Al-Farahidi (786 - 718 AD) who did so after noticing
that poems consisted of repeated syllables in each verse. In his first book, Al-Ard (Arabic:
al-ar), he described 15 types of verse. Al-Akhfash described one extra, the 16th.

A short syllable contains a short vowel with no following consonants. For example, the word
kataba, which syllabifies as ka-ta-ba, contains three short vowels and is made up of three
short syllables. A long syllable contains either a long vowel or a short vowel followed by a
consonant as is the case in the word maktbun which syllabifies as mak-t-bun. These are the
only syllable types possible in Classical Arabic phonology which, by and large, does not
allow a syllable to end in more than one consonant or a consonant to occur in the same
syllable after a long vowel. In other words, syllables of the type -k- or -akr- are not found in
classical Arabic.

Each verse consists of a certain number of metrical feet (tafl or az) and a certain
combination of possible feet constitutes a metre (bar).

The traditional Arabic practice for writing out a poem's metre is to use a concatenation of
various derivations of the verbal root F--L (). Thus, the following hemistich

Would be traditionally scanned as:

That is, Romanized and with traditional Western scansion: